Gargoyle Velocite oil.

Good morning all, The machine I am rebuilding has a plate attached recommending the use of Gargoyle Velocite oil. Does anyone know what the modern replacement is for this oil. Thanks.

Gargoyle is now part oif Mobil, so any Mobil stockist should be able to sort it out

A bit hard to suggest a choice without knowing the application.

It seems that Gargoyle Velocite was an old general purpose spindle oil like 3 in 1.

Today you can get Mobil Gargoyle if your project is a refrigerator, or Mobil Velocite for slideways and spindles. Presumably they bought the old company up and took its names?

There are many grades of the new oils.

Neil

OK, thanks.

ISO specification hydraulic oils with anti wear additives are generally considered to be perfectly satisfactory in bronze lathe spindle bearings and similar applications.

Many years ago I contacted Castrol about oils form my Southbend Heavy 10 which had plain bronze bearings in the spindle. They said use Hyspin AWS 32 hydraulic oil in the spindle and Manga BD68 for the sideways, apron, feed screws, drop gears and other lower speed uses. Pushing 30 years later I find the same combination perfectly acceptable although the machines I use now are rather more industrial in character.

I have a note that Mobile Velocite oils go up to around ISO 22 - 25 but am unsure of the origin or accuracy.

ISO 20 is very thin. My view is that the only machines needing super thin oils are things like the high speed plain bearing Holbrook C's often purchased for diamond turning duties, and similar. Uber thin oils are a right pest to keep in the machine and can be hard for older, inevitably worn, pump fed systems to cope with.

Clive.

Edited By Clive Foster on 29/10/2018 13:03:49

Have just bought some Velocite 6 mixed with kerosene from ebay, for a J&S surface grinder spindle. As you would expect it’s really thin. Point being Velocite in it’s various grades is still available.

Unless it's very high speed any ISO32 oil should be fine.

If a fast spindle you will need a thinner oil and more of it.

Neil

Yep, the advantage of hydraulic oils is that they don't have lots of additives, have well controlled viscosity and are meant for a long working life.

Hi Clive, yes I think I will go with the advice of the members that have replied, the lube system is gravity fed via wicks so it will need to be thin also I have no plans to run the spindle at speeds above 2500 rpm. Thanks for the info.

Hey Jon,it is a Mikron F75 milling machine, I have put some pics up in my albums if you want to check it out, these are before pics and I will be uploading rafters soon.

Thanks Bill, very interesting, good luck with the lubricant.

Nice-looking machine and interesting that the spindle nose appears to be similar to that on the Mikron lathe the subject of another thread.

I assume Gargoyle was a foreign company?

The heads on the M75 and the T90 lathe were interchangeable.

USA. Gargoyle was originally a brand of Steam Oil produced by the Vacuum Oil Company of New York (founded 1866), who were also responsible later for the Mobil brand name. Big business. Vacuum were bought by Standard Oil in 1879 but split off again when Standard Oil were broken up as an illegal monopoly in 1911. In 1931 Vacuum merged with Socony (from 'Standard Oil Company New York' ) to become the Socony-Vacuum Corporation, the 3rd largest oil company in the world. Renamed the Socony-Mobil Oil Company in 1955, then Mobilgas in 1963, Mobil in 1966, and then becoming ExxonMobile by merger in 1999. Currently the world's largest oil company and a multinational.

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 31/10/2018 21:46:14

Bill York:

"The heads on the M75 and the T90 lathe were interchangeable." Seems like an excellent idea. I recall that the Dore-Westbury mill had a Myford spindle nose.

SOD:

Great stuff! Machine tool manufacturers blithely specified a specific brand of oil ignoring the possibility that the oil industry might move on; they would have done better to provide the specification (no doubt some do).